thanks also to dr. anthony fauci and bill gates for joining us and also to all of you who wrote in with your questions and everyone who joined us tonight. thank you. be careful. stay safe. we're all in this together. the news continues here on cnn. hello and welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm michael holmes. and coming up here on "cnn newsroom," president donald trump makes an apparent about-face on a quarantine in three northeastern states. hear what made him change his mind. grim milestones across the planet from london to tokyo. we've got you covered. and some good news. empty streets have led to a giant drop in pollution levels. we'll discuss. president trump has backed off the idea he floated earlier on saturday of what he called a

possible quarantine of parts of new york, new jersey and connecticut. he raised that idea saturday morning after talking with florida's republican governor. the governor said they discussed people from the hot zones around new york coming to florida and possibly infecting floridians. mr. trump tweeted his idea of a quarantine and then spoke about it twice on saturday, when leaving the white house and when in virginia. >> some people would like to see new york quarantined because it's a hot spot. new york, new jersey, maybe one or two other places. certain parts of connecticut quarantined. i'm thinking about that right now. >> i am now considering and will make a decision very quickly, very shortly. a quarantine, because it's such a hot area of new york, new jersey and connecticut. >> at that point the president had apparently not even spoken

to the democratic governors in those three states and got pushback from several political leaders and experts. new york's governor calling it quite possibly illegal. then saturday night the president issued what else, another tweet. saying that on the recommendation of the coronavirus task force and consultation with the governors he was asking the centers for disease control and prevention to issue what he called a strong travel advisory. those guidelines from the cdc call for the residents of new york, new jersey and connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately. that's very similar to what governors of those states had already put in place. mr. trump was in virginia to see off the u.s. navy hospital ship "comfort." it is now heading to new york to provide hospital beds for non-coronavirus patients. now, as it makes its way, the u.s. crossed another tragic milestone. at least 2,043 people in the

u.s. have now died of coronavirus. at least. that is double the amount just two days ago. the number of confirmed cases in the u.s. also skyrocketing. now topping at least 120,000. and in italy a sad milestone as well. that country hitting 10,000 deaths. an increase of 889 from the day before. in the united kingdom the parking lot of an amusement park turned into a testing center for health care workers. while prime minister boris johnson will be sending a letter to every household in great britain, urging everyone to stay home, saying "things will get worse before they get better." all right. there is a lot to cover from all over the world. from europe to asia and other regions as well. but let's begin in washington and white house correspondent jeremy diamond. >> reporter: president trump on saturday backing down in the face of criticism. the president earlier on

saturday proposing a quarantine, essentially restricting travel for any residents of new york and people in parts of new jersey and connecticut, restricting them from traveling to other parts of the country. the president late saturday night instead backing down and proposing this instead. "on the recommendation of the white house coronavirus task force and upon consultation with the governors of new york, new jersey and connecticut i have asked the cdc to issue a strong travel advisory to be administered by the governors in consultation with the federal government. a quarantine will not be necessary. full details will be released by the cdc tonight." that was the president tweeting on saturday night. so what the president is proposing here, it's not clear exactly what the details are. of course there are already pretty strict restrictions by each of those three states already in place. take new york, for example. there is a stay at home order encouraging new yorkers not to leave their homes other than for

necessities like getting groceries or getting medicine. so it's not clear what this travel advisory would do to actually change the situation on the ground. but what is clear, though, is the timeline of all of this. the president's tweet backing down from his proposal earlier on saturday morning came after criticism from new york's governor andrew cuomo. >> this would be a declaration of war on states. a federal declaration of war. and it wouldn't just be new york, new jersey, connecticut. next week it would be louisiana with new orleans and the week after that it would be detroit and michigan and it would run all across the nation. >> reporter: cuomo made pretty clear that he not only disagreed with this proposal by the president but that he believed that it would be illegal if implemented or that the president didn't have the legal authority to actually impose some kind of geographic-based quarantine. what is clear, though, is this is in keeping with the president's thinking over the last several days. the president has been eager to get the economy going again. and what he's been looking at as

these 15-day guidelines are set to lapse in a matter of days is putting in a system that would be more geographic-based, looking at the risk in certain areas of the country. but it appears the president's initial attempt to do something that would be geographic-based, at least something that would be federally enforceable so far, has not come to fruition. jeremy diamond, cnn, washington. well, the state of louisiana saw a spike in coronavirus cases and now is reporting over 3,000 confirmed cases. more than 130 deaths. the city of new orleans especially hit hard. and the national guard has been called in there. a local nurse at a new orleans hospital telling cnn that her hospital is averaging three to four deaths per day. she tells us this. "we have had to set up a temporary morgue, white box, outside the ed next to the ambulance ramp for those who expire from covid-19. this temporary morgue is full."

with more on the situation in new orleans, cnn's ed lavandera. >> reporter: the latest numbers here in louisiana suggest that this state and the city in particular of new orleans remains a hot spot in the coronavirus outbreak across the country. the department of health here in louisiana says there are now more than 3,300 cases of coronavirus in the state and that there have been 137 deaths. this is a significant jump from the day before. and here in the next few hours the latest numbers will be released ubs once again. that is the continuous increase of these case numbers is what happens people here on edge. and medical experts say that is this is a spike in the trajectory that will continue to go up. that's why they're concerned. the governor says by this time next week or the end of this coming week that they'll be running out of hospital bed space as well as ventilators. the governor has requested some

12,000 ventilators. the last we heard they hadn't even received 200 of those. so many people in hospitals all across this state bracing for what's coming in the coming days here as there's a great deal of concern of just how quickly this virus is spreading among the population here. the stay at home, shelter at home orders have been issued for almost a week now here in the state. and you have seen how that has had a significant effect. businesses shuttered here in the french quarter. many businesses boarded up as if it was a hurricane coming toward the city of new orleans once again. many people taking those orders seriously. and they hope that that will begin to flatten the curve. but there is a great deal of concern about what will happen in hospitals across this state this coming week. ed lavandera, cnn, new orleans. >> dr. stanley pearlman is a professor of microbiology and immunology. he joins me now from iowa city.

doctor, great to have your expertise. it's looking like the worst of this is not here, perhaps two weeks out, maybe more in the u.s. what are the sign posts you're looking for? what do you see in the days ahead? >> well, it looks like in? cities we see numbers of cases increasing greatly. and some cities like new york already has a lot. places like detroit seem to be increasing greatly. so we know something about the curve already. even in the state i live in, iowa, the last two days the number of cases has gone up much more than the previous days. so we see a ramp up of the infection. and that's what we'll be looking for. >> and speaking to that very point, speak to how important widespread testing is. i'm talking about surveillance testing. sort of enable the isolation of carriers who don't show symptoms, contact tracing and so on, because that ain't happening. >> yeah, so i don't -- i think that testing was really

important earlier on in this when we had fewer patients and infected individuals so we know who's infected, we could potentially isolate them. when you have such wide community spread i think that testing may be less helpful. certainly we would like to identify as many carriers as we can and infected individuals. but there may be so many violent infections now going on that this may not be practical. and that's why i think we've gone into this mitigation and then maybe even suppression stage of making sure everybody just keeps their distance. >> i think everybody's looking at what's happening now and that's important. and what's happening going forward. just for a minute to look back, would it seem to you that was the testing rollout, that was the biggest failure, the biggest fiasco, that even people with symptoms weren't being tested and the level infection simply wasn't known? even probably a lot of deaths

have been put down as pneumonia because there was no testing. >> i have to agree with you. that's exactly correct. early on we absolutely needed more testing. we could have known who was a carrier, who actually had the infection as opposed to having influenza virus, which is still circulating widely here. absolutely true. if we'd known earlier on we could have done -- much like in south korea, where people who were infected were quarantined or self-isolated and they did a great job of controlling the infection. >> and as a professional in the field, i mean, when you look back a couple of months the warning signs as you point out, i mean, south korea and the u.s. had their first case on the same day and proceeded to act very differently. when you look at the political leaders who played this down despite what they knew, when you think about the scenarios, studies that were done as recently as last year, does that anger you? i think cnn is actually reporting the government was warned ten times in 13 years about a lack of ventilators in the event of something like

this. he. >> of course it does make one angry because we see so many people dying from the infection now. they don't have a lot of ventilators and a lot of these infections could have been prevented if we'd done more testing and isolation early on. we let it get so far out of hand. >> if new york city and the united states is facing the situation it is in right now, what are your fears for not just other parts of the u.s. but other parts of the world? i mean, africa, haiti, places with poor medical infrastructure and oftentimes crowded living areas. >> yeah, of course. this is what we worry about a lot because these areas are setups for having widespread infection by a virus that easily transmit from person to person and where there aren't good health care facilities to take care of lots of sick people. what i wonder partly here is there's a younger population in a lot of these places and certainly we know now that

younger people can get sick and can die, but still the major part of mortality is in people who either have co-morbidities like heart disease or renal disease or hypertension and roh who are older. so if you have less of that population, this is all speculation but i wonder if the infection will behave a little differently. certainly young people can get sick and die. but not often. >> as we're seeing more and more, in france in particular just in the last few days. briefly and finally, when you hear the president talk about the economy getting the country back to work, he said easter but then walked that back a little. but in terms of priorities, speak to the risk of second waves. perhaps licklihood if that happened. >> one is in the first wave here not ending in a timely fashion because people go back to work too early. i think there's going to likely be, very possibly a second wave next fall or next spring like there was in the 1918 influenza

epidemic. so there's two waves. >> dr. stanley perlman, really appreciate you having you on to discuss this and borrowing your expertise in this. thank you so much. >> you're very welcome. well, the british government is also preparing for a surge of more cases. workers in london busy converting london's xl center into an emergency hospital. on saturday the department of health reported that more than 1,000 people have died from the coronavirus. the medical director of the nhs england addressed the sobering milestone. >> i think the chief scientific adviser to the government said recently if we can keep that below 20,000 we will have done very well in this epidemic. it's early at the moment. and the scientists who are working with government to model what we can expect. of course adjusting their predictions now as we start to see the actuality of the

epidemic in the uk. >> in italy empty streets like these in milan are a sight that's become all too familiar. incredible scenes there. people are heeding the warnings, as you can see for yourself. just stay inside as the number of deaths crosses that 10,000 mark. cnn's ben wedeman looks at the devastating top the vire ining taken on the country. >> reporter: coffins, one next to another next to another, next to another. lined up in a church in northern italy, the epicenter of this country's coronavirus outbreak. social distancing means family and friends can't say their final farewells. the sick were all alone as they lay dying. they were people, says father mario carmenati, who died without anyone to hear or see

them, without the possibility to talk to their loved ones, with no one to comfort them. the increase in new cases has of late showed signs of beginning to slow down. but now covid-19 has killed more people in italy than anywhere else on earth. the public health system, one of europe's best, has been pushed to the limits. the disease has killed more than 50 medical personnel, more than 7,000 have fallen ill. italy has been under lockdown for almost three weeks. severe measures, maybe starting to bear fruit says dr. moreno trisoldi. "we should see less people arriving in the emergency ward," he says. "and we will be able to better look after patients." >> reporter: even if the numbers are starting to level out, the damage coronavirus has done to this country is breathtaking.

friday evening the 24-hour death toll was 969. saturday evening the authorities reported another 889 people had died. if there's light at the end of this tunnel, it is at best a faint glimmer. ben wedeman, cnn, rome. we'll teak a short break now. when we come back, dire warnings and urgent pleas from the prime minister on down. why are many people in japan still getting out and about during the pandemic? we'll check in with will ripley in tokyo when we come back.

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welcome back. china wants the world to know life is getting back to normal in covid-19's original epicenter. state media showing public transportation coming back online in wuhan. this is only a partial reopen. and health checks are still very much in place. but face mask-clad passengers are filtering back into the metro system. the government says the virus is under control and these people here are celebrating quietly. giving a thumbs up for the cameras as other passengers wave

chinese flags. but the virus is pushing japan to the brink of a national emergency. saturday the country reported its biggest one-day increase in cases, nearly 200. prime minister shinzo abe is pushing for a massive aid package to help blunt the impact on the economy. and he's urging people to avoid crowds and limit their outings so japan won't have to impose the strict controls that many european countries are now seeing. cnn's will ripley is in tokyo. the prime minister says japan is barely hanging on. and urging people to get off the streets. and apparently, some snow is helping with that. >> reporter: yeah, mother nature doing something that the japanese government has been unable to do, michael. this is very rare late march snow which tends to keep people inside. but keeping people inside has been a challenge for the japanese government this week. a lot of people either unaware or unconcerned about the risk of spreading the virus.

huge crowds pack tokyo's meguro river for hanami, the viewing of the cherry blossoms. they gather despite increasingly dire warnings from the japanese government. warnings coronavirus cases could see a major spike. >> the situation is very, very severe. >> reporter: kenji fuma sees the crowds from his apartment window. what do you think when you see all these people outside, some not wearing masks, close together? >> no good. yeah. feel very worried. >> reporter: the japanese government is worried too. tokyo governor uriko kuike calls the situation severe, critical. she says this may be the japanese capital's last chance to flatten the curve. "we could w. would like to see each resident share the sense of crisis," she says. "do what you can to avoid spreading it." she's asking people to stay home, avoid non-essential travel, be vigilant to slow the spread. so far it's not working.

despite guidelines to work from home, many offices this week full. public transportation packed. bars and restaurants open. this weekend the city's relaxed mood does seem to be changing. ueno park's famous cherry blossoms closed along with many department stores and around 500 starbucks. the iconic shibuya crossing, always packed, on saturday empty. people preparing for the kind of restrictions on business and travel that other nations imposed weeks or even months ago. japanese prime minister shinzo abe is moving closer to declaring a state of emergency. just days after announcing the tokyo 2020 olympics will be postponed. infectious disease experts warn of a steep price in human life if coronavirus spreads rapidly in this rapidly aging society. >> very dangerous. coronavirus very dangerous to old people. >> and you have a lot of senior citizens in japan. >> yeah, yeah.

in hospitals. and nursing home. >> reporter: dr. masahiro kame is executive director of japan's non-profit medical grofrns research institute. he says most coronavirus patients in japan are likely showing few if any symptoms. japan claims it can process close to 8,000 tests per day. in reality they're testing less than 1/6 of that number, averaging around 1,200 tests per day. the health ministry says as of friday just 27,000 people have been tested. 27,000 people in a country of 125 million, leading many in japan to wonder how many cases are really out there. many here are also wondering why now, michael. why wait until after the olympics were postponed for tokyo to consider a lockdown that some feel should have happened a long time ago that could have prevented the kind of crowds we saw out this week for

hanami, the viewing of the cherry blossoms? but the japanese government now seems to have woken up. they've beefed up health screenings. tough new travel restrictions and shinzo abe is on the verge of declaring a state of emergency which could change daily life very dramatically for a lot of people in japan much like it has for many all over the world. >> a lost countries regretting getting a late start on this. hopefully japan won't be one of them. will ripley, thank you. there in tokyo. the streets of one middle eastern country look like a war zone as the government fights to contain covid. the draconian measures some countries have taken to stop the virus. that's when we come back.

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and welcome back to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm michael holmes. you're watching "cnn newsroom." the number of infections officially topped 35,000 in iran, the worst-hit country in the middle east. iran also facing a spike in deaths with the official total passing 2,500. that's the official total. workers in protective gear digging more graves as the nation struggles with its covid-19 response. other countries in the region are faring better, but they're not taking chances. cnn's jomana karadze reports on the draconian measures being taken. >> reporter: as the pandemic was shutting down one country after another this was the scene in one egyptian town. a prewedding reception sprayed with disinfectant. not much social distancing here.

the groft has since imposed a curfew to try to contain the spread of coronavirus in the arab world's most populous country. with a catastrophic outbreak in iran most countries in this region are not taking their chances. air raid sirens signal the start of a life most jordanians have never experienced before. it's a war against an invisible enemy. the government has chosen to fight with an iron fist. this lockdown is one of the strictest in the world. its military deployed to the streets and security forces detaining hundreds of curfew violators. >> translator: the countries that succeeded in dealing with this epidemic are the ones that moved swiftly and carried out stringent measures. >> reporter: in lebanon the military in the sky urging people to stay home and only go out if necessary. and on the ground in beirut's

usually buzzing streets a show of force. this crisis couldn't have come at a worse time for lebanon. he its economy already on the brink of collapse after months of anti-establishment protests. it's devastating for the many lebanese already struggling to make ends meet. father of four abu adam is out to connect a donation of cleaning materials, something he can't afford. he says the government's measures are hurting people like him. he's a day laborer. going out means feeding his family and paying rent. "they've destroyed the people. people aren't making money," he says. governments in this region are enforcing drastic measures for good reason. many of their health care systems would not be able to cope with the kind of outbreak we're seeing in other countries. as numbers of confirmed cases continue to rise steadily in iraq, an exhausted doctor makes an emotional plea to the people. "please stay at home.

we don't want to lose more lives. we're getting cases and we still see people out at the markets and on the streets. we're sacrificing our lives for your lives. please, i ask you to stay at home," he says. with growing calls for people to stay home and governments moving toward more draconian measures, changing attitudes and behaviors in this region is one daunting task. ♪ jomana karadsheh, cnn, istanbul. we're getting a better idea of how the virus is spreading through africa now. a great concern. the world health organization reporting more than 2,500 reported cases and only 50 deaths across the continent. but more widespread testing has only been available recently and it's not all that widespread. the w.h.o.'s director general

says only two of the 47 nations in its africa region could do testing when the outbreak started. india reporting its biggest single-day jump in cases saturday. health officials say there are nearly 900 total cases, at least 19 deaths. but the early days there too. preventing the spread of the virus could be a big challenge. thousands of migrant workers trying to leave the big locked down cities to get home. many stranded at shelters and rail stations and are they taking the virus with them? we told you yesterday about the dire situation in the city of giaquil in ecuador. they've run out of hospital beds. clinics are full. and the mayor raising a chilling alarm about the growing number of dead bodies. she says they are uting put outside hospitals and on sidewalks and abandoned in homes because nobody is picking them up. this is the mayor. ecuador's reported 1,800 cases of coronavirus.

more than 40 deaths. but a lot of worried people. now, the pandemic is forcing people to stay at home, of course, all across europe. and guess what. that's causing air pollution to decrease by a lot. we'll look at how to improve and perhaps what we can learn. yes. yeah sure. yes. yes. yeah, yeah no problem. yes yes, yes a thousand times yes! disover. accepted at 99% of places in the u.s. t-mobile has the first and only, nationwide 5g network. and with it, you can shape the future. we've invested 30 billion dollars and built our new 5g network for businesses like yours. while some 5g signals only go a few blocks, t-mobile 5g goes for miles. no other 5g signal goes farther or is more reliable in business. tomorrow is in your hands. partner with t-mobile for business today.

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the coronavirus crisis has helped one thing, and that is the environment, as people stay home and get out less airplanes are grounded. well, guess what? the air quality's improving. new images from the european space agency show a sharp decline in pollution over several major cities. as bill weir reports, this pandemic is a stark reminder of just how important it is to heed the warnings from the experts. >> reporter: hello, earth lovers. bill weir, cnn, from a very surreal brooklyn where for some reason i can't stop thinking

about all the disaster movies that start with someone in power ignoring a scientist. >> we have it totally under control. it's one person coming in from china. >> reporter: that's just one of the parallels between coronavirus and the climate crisis. >> you only have 11 years to live, folks. 11 years. because climate change is just coming up on us so fast. >> reporter: think about it. both kill the most vulnerable and will cost trillions. both will reveal heroic first responders and scientists and inspiring neighbors, as well as deplorable hoarders, grifters, and profiteers. and both are reminders that life as we know it are dependent on predictable flights and growing seasons and supply chains. but what if the age of predictability is over? which brings us to the main difference between coronavirus and climate change. fear. exhibit a, jane's carousel here in brooklyn.

the last time it was this deserted and depressing was after superstorm sandy. and between the melting ice caps and sea level rise there is no doubt my neighborhood is going back underwater. but invisible carbon dioxide molecules cannot shut down a carousel or a city or a world the way an invisible virus can. because we think we have time. time waters down fear. but if we can go back in time just a few months, wouldn't we take science a lot more seriously? wouldn't we know that the countries that wait for their people to start dying before acting suffer the worst? and the countries with the most transparency, decisive leadership, and mutual trust fare the best? wouldn't we know the importance of flattening the curve? you've probably seen this by now, right? this represents time. this is the number of patients and the dotted line is our hospital capacity. a sudden pandemic, a spike can crash the system. but with enough smart leadership

and mass cooperation we can flatten the curve. guess what. this works with climate too. miami is trying to flatten the curve of sea level rise by spending millions on higher streets and bigger pumps. california is trying to flatten their curve with new wildfire regulations and insurance laws. but so much of humanity still thinks about the climate crisis the way a spring breaker thinks about coronavirus. >> we get no school and we can do whatever we want. >> reporter: since the global fossil fuel economy slowed down, you can see the cleaner air from space. and in just a few weeks china conserved about half as much heat-trapping pollution as australia or the united kingdom burns in a year. mother earth can bounce back if we let her. and it shouldn't take a global pandemic and recession first. just more smart science, more smart leadership, and a sense that we're all in this together. something to think about the next time you wash your hands for 20 seconds to save people

you will never meet and life as we know it. bill weir, cnn, new york. >> daniel kamen is with us to discuss this further. he's a professor of energy at the university of california berkeley. great to have you on, professor. this has been -- it's quite staggering. unintended consequences. but what does it tell us? >> well, it shows how quickly we can change our system. we've seen 30% to 40% drops in pollution over many of the world's cities. and it also shows us how quickly we could switch to clean energy if we took climate change as seriously as coronavirus. >> are you surprised? you're probably not. but i'm a little surprised at how big the changes are. as you say, you you know, 30%, in some parts of europe, the pollutants in italy, one area of italy slashed by half. it is massive. >> it is massive. but it also shows us that

actions do matter. our individual decisions, whether we take an extra trip, whether we just drive to go get one thing at the store and come back, those actions all add up. and we scale it up to industry and to countries and regions. it really shows us that if we put our mind to it and if we invested in science we could not only do a far better job on climate change but we could also do it in a much more equitable way than we're doing now. >> very good point. a lot of people point out in these days of amazon and so on, ordering that one little package that's got a carbon footprint by the time it gets to you. i'm curious about the lessons learned. and the fear of course when this is all over, does that pollution just return? i mean, when it passes could it be even worse in a way because you're going to have nations like china actually ramping up on production to catch up on lost time. or do you think changes can be sustainable going forward? >> you're absolutely right. we saw that before. after 9/11 we saw a great

diminution and then a bounceback, a more aggressive overconsumption afterwards. but climate is a battle we're going to be fighting for not years but decades. and so the real question is can we learn the positive lessons out of this horrible experience with coronavirus and say we want to switch to clean energy now? it's cheaper in many places and we want to invest in better systems so that low income communities can actually generate their own power. make themselves more resilient. and we're not doing that with coronavirus today by denying some of the poorest communities testing and respirators. and we're doing the same thing on climate. so we're making a natural disaster into a social disaster when we have all the tools to make this into a chance to really build a green stimulus. >> great point. i've seen a lot of people also make the point that wouldn't it be nice if the world reacted to climate change, the threat from climate change, with the same sense of urgency as we're

reacting to coronavirus? because climate change can and will cause more deaths and have more impact ultimately going forward. do you agree with that? >> absolutely. in fact, we're already seeing in china a plan to ramp up coal production right when they've become the leader in solar and wind production technologies as a way to fight the economic downturn. and that's the wrong lesson. the right lesson is that we've got these technologies ready to go. we should be deploying them now. because if we think that the coronavirus came on quick, as we've seen from the wildfires and we've seen from some of the hurricanes and other disasters, climate change will overwhelm our systems. investing now, believing in the science and then acting on the science, that's really our best defense. >> that bill weir piece is excellent. and the data that we're seeing. because really those show that the world can heal when given

the chance. but the way our economies operate outside of pandemics, it just shows us the lesson that's can be learned. the point you make about solar and wind power, it is efficient. it is growing. it is enormous. why has that sort of quantum leap to those sorts ever energy sources not been made? is it about money? is it about lobbyists? what is it? >> unfortunately, it's all of those things. the total amount we subsidize fossil fuels today is somewhere between half a trillion and $5 trillion a year. that's several times what we're investing in clean energy. and if we just put that same amount of innovation, we're seeing people printing up masks at home and doing coronavirus heroic activities, as bill mentioned. those things we could be doing on climate. we could be all installing solar. we could be doing it for neighborhoods. we could be investing in electric vehicles. that is basically inoculating us against climate change. and yet that big finger on the

fossil fuels really holds us back. >> never understood why every house isn't built with solar panels on the roof. but there you go. professor, really appreciate it. a fascinating discussion. professor daniel kammen there from uc berkeley. appreciate it. thank you. >> thank you. >> it really is extraordinary when you look at what has happened around the world and the data that has come in. now, we're going to take a short break. when we come back, life across the u.s. changing in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. when we come back, we'll find out how americans are reworking their daily routines to cope with the new reality. you're watching "cnn newsroom."

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coping. >> across america coronavirus is changing lives. instead of studying, 22-year-old college student is getting a hard lesson in life, her mom sent this picture of her cleaning out her dorm at the university in north carolina. her entire senior year in question. with her high school closed senior kristen lee in tennessee stands to lose lifelong memories, dreams of softball, prom maybe even graduation. >> i heard about it and started crying, i was really upset because this year, it's senior's year. >> coronavirus changed everything. in this ohio town until recently, one of the last shortages haunted the owners. >> it really kind of started to build up inside to the point i realized we needed to take action. >> so he found army surplus

material and now makes hospital masks selling for $5 a piece. >> this isn't a for-profit effort. what we'd like to have is just enough to cover our material and labor. >> he's helping the masks help others while helping him stay in business. john henderson checked in from texas saying he is crazy busy. >> i'm driving down the highway with a load sticking out of my sunroof of my wife's four-runner, i got 60,000 surgical masks in boxes in my car. >> he and his team from texas rural community hospitals are go nonstop delivering personal protective equipment to 157 rural health care facilities all over the lone star state. >> two boxes are going to go to the hospital in earn heart for total of 3,000 mask. >> he said his family is healthy and kids have started learning online and all appreciate life

more. >> hi i'm adrian. been with amazon ten years. >> he checked in while on the job. >> my children are at home doing the lessons plans with mom with help from teachers and distance learning and we're practice igging social distancing. >> unlike serves like amazon become more vital to people and adrian knows it sand ploud to play his part. >> i remember growing up when mr. rogers said there's scary things on the news always look for helpers. for me that's the best part about it. >> stanton moore could really use some help. >> we have had to close the club, cancel our tour. >> the drummer of the band gallactic owns tip tinos in new orleans but coronavirus has devastated the music scene. >> it's kind of an eerie feeling. >> there's no money to pay

musicians, bartenders or roadies. to try to get some income stanton teaches the drums online. >> i've been doing skype lessons right here, with my computer set up right over here. >> you can also go online and buy a virtual drinks a donation. >> this has been daunting for us and we don't know when all of this is going to end and we don't know what the future holds. >> that is just as true in new orleans as it is everywhere else. cnn, atlanta. >> thanks for spending part of your day with us, you've been watching "cnn newsroom." do stay with us, i'll see you with more news in about an hour from now. see you then.

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♪ this is cnn breaking news. >> welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world i'm wolf blitzer in washington. this is a speciale edition of situation room. cnn now confirmed 2000 deaths in the united states from coronavirus, now doubled in a little more than two days. than two days, globally now more than 66,000 cases the u.s. more than 117,000 cases, that's the most anywhere in the world. and just to put all these numbers in some sort of perspective.

look at this. on march 5th, the u.s. reported just 11 deaths in the country that jumped to 149 on march 19th, three days ago there were just under 1,000 deaths in the united states. look how it's more than doubled now. also tonight at least 215 million americans are under stay at home orders. a large number of them in the state of new york that's now the epicenter in the outbreak in this country. nurses at one bronx hospital echoing the fears and frustrations voiced by so many of their colleagues nationwide taking to the lawn of their hospital to protest the lack of desperately needed equipment to keep them safe and only moments ago after sparking lots of controversy earlier today by suggesting might quarantine new york, new jersey and connecticut, move the new york governor andrew cuomo called illegal and a federal declaration of war. the president, president trump